As the world nervously watches turbulence abroad, 85 minutes of peace, cooperation, and deliciousness can be had in Breaking Bread, currently showing at Plaza Frontenac Cinema.
Chefs of all ethnic backgrounds participate in the A-Sham Festival, held in Haifa, Israel’s third-largest city. It’s the brainchild of Dr. Nof Atamna-Ismaeel, who won Master Chef Israel and teaches microbiology at the University of Haifa. She feels that food is a universal experience. In that spirit, the festival pairs each chef with someone of a different heritage, with more than 40 people participating in the festival.
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One chef is a third-generation restaurateur whose grandfather, the only survivor in the family, came to Israel and worked in a sausage factory before opening a Polish restaurant, which is still operating. Another participant is the son of a French Catholic father and a Jewish mother from Livorno, Italy. There’s a Jewish-Arab married couple who runs a hummus restaurant. Acclaimed chef Osama Dalal is from Akko, the historic city in Israel also called Acre that’s known for its seafood. Dalal tells a story about swimming out to gather lobsters and his grandmother, whose home was right on the harbor, dropping a basket to him to take the crustaceans up to be cooked.
The influence of foods from all parts of the area and stories of generations past are a common motif. The chopped dish often tagged “Israeli salad” for generations was an Arabic salad, but now people worry about names. Instead, focus on the food, says Atamna-Ismaeel, and the experience. Haifa is known for little tension between its various communities. While there’s some discussion of the political angle, the emphasis of the film is far more on the common experience.
The food photography, from noted cinematographer Ofer Ben-Yehuda, is dazzling, with showers of chopped pistachios, as well as chefs plating pork steaks and making open-face lamb dumplings (pictured above). The chefs provide insights into who they are and what they cook.
If food can bring us together, this documentary is a good start, especially in these tumultuous days.
